She is six, and terribly, terribly afraid of thunderstorms, and this one sounds like it's coming from directly over the villa.
Her father is away on business in Junon with Rufus, and Mother is visiting sick relatives in Kalm.
Usually, during thunderstorms, Rufus will sneak into her bed and they'll both hide under the blankets, but tonight she is alone and trembling, and when lightning flashes, her bedroom lights up even through the comforter around her. The thunder drowns out the sound of the pouring rain and rattles her window panes.
During a lull in the storm, Charlie slips out of bed and out of her room. The hallway is dark without any windows, but there's a night light plugged into the wall, just in case she needs to see her way to the bathroom at night.
She doesn't need the night light anymore. She can feel her way there, and she counts the doors she touches until she reaches the third door at the opposite end of the hall.
Charlie knocks on the door to the guest room. That's where the Turks always sleep when Father and Rufus and Mother are away, but Veld stays more than anyone else. The only time he doesn't is when he's away on assignment, but he doesn't go away as often anymore.
There are clothes all over the floor, and on his nightstand is a gun, an empty glass bottle of something, and a few pill bottles. He snores when he sleeps, his arm hangs off the bed, and she has to poke him in the ribs to get him to stir.
"Veld," she whispers, putting her face right in front of his, so close that she can feel his breath against her cheek. "Veld, please wake up."
He stirs, groaning and shifting. "What are you doing awake, little princess?"
"I'm scared of the thunder."
"There's nothing to be scared of. The storm will pass soon."
"Can I sleep with you tonight?"
It takes him a long time to answer. He opens his eyes and looks at her, looks hard into her terrified little girl's face. "Just for tonight."
He throws back the blanket and puts a shirt on to hide the marred canvas of his body. There are scars all over. She's seen them when he takes her to the beach. Everyone is scared of him, but not her. She could never be afraid of someone so gentle with her.
Thunder booms as she settles into the bed with him. It will not be the last time. She's not as afraid with him beside her. His room smells a little bit like her father's cigar smoke, but not quite so sweet.
Father never lets her sleep in bed with him.
"Better?" Veld asks, rolling onto his side.
"Yes."
"Okay. Bed time now, little one."
She finds his hand in the darkness, wrapping small and thin fingers around his hard ones. He squeezes back.
She is ten, and whenever she and Veld eat ice cream on the boardwalk, happy families always pass them by, holding hands and carrying children on their shoulders, pointing at souvenirs that only tourists would like.
They're always laughing. Her father hates to laugh and he hates to hold hands and he hasn't carried Charlie in his arms or on his shoulders for a long time.
"Why doesn't daddy ever want to bring me to work with him?"
Veld prefers to eat his ice cream from a bowl. Once, he bought a cone, but the ice cream melted all over and ended up making his prosthetic arm all sticky. Charlie had helped clean it.
"Because it's boring work. Wouldn't you rather your brother suffer through the boring work?"
That's what he always says. It's just an excuse to cover up the truth. "Does he not love me?"
Veld frowns and puts his empty bowl onto the bench beside him. "Why would you say that?"
"Because I think it's true."
It's the first time she's ever said it out loud. She would never say it to anyone else. "Your father isn't a sentimental man. Do you know what that means?"
She nods. His laughter is gruff. It sounds forced, but she knows it's not.
"Of course you do, precocious girl. He just doesn't know how to show that he loves you."
"Well, I don't think he likes me at all."
Veld hums, watching her look down sadly at her chocolate ice cream cone. The same flavor every single time with the same topping. "Have you told him that?"
"No." She never would. She knows Father wouldn't care, and it would probably just earn her a beating. "We're a broken family."
His frown deepens as the sound of children's laughter floats up to the boardwalk from the beach. He points to her melting ice cream. Her fingers are turning brown. "Oh no, what happened to your ice cream?"
She looks closely, but sees nothing, and then the ice cream is pushed up into her face. It smears across her lips and chin and the tip of her nose. She licks as much of it off her face as she can and gives Veld a surprised look.
He's smiling, and they laugh as loudly as the other families walking by that day.
She is twelve, and she wakes in the middle of the night with a terrible pain in the right side of her abdomen while her father and brother are gone from the city.
Her cries and terrified screams wake Veld, who kicks her bedroom door off the hinges entirely, his gun drawn, ready to fight back an intruder. His hair sticks up this way and that, slightly more gray than she remembers, and the white dress shirt hanging on his shoulders is unbuttoned.
It's only appendicitis, the doctor says, but she is still frightened. Veld walks her all the way to the operating room, holding her hand as she's wheeled there on a gurney, in so much pain that she could die.
And when she wakes after surgery, just as the sun is rising, he is there at her bedside, looking pleased to see her awake.
"Hey, kiddo. Feeling better?"
"I guess so," she admits, even though the place they made the incision still stings and burns.
"Yeah, you're tougher than you look. You gave me a scare, you know."
"Sorry." She's been given the largest suite available. It's lonely, horribly white, and the TV only gets three channels, all of them Shinra news stations. That's what she gets, being brought to a Shinra hospital. "Are Father and Rufus coming back to see me?"
Veld looks uncomfortable for a moment, and then clears his throat. "No, little princess . . . they're going to be a few more days."
"Oh. Okay."
"Listen to me, Charlotte." He takes her hand. He means business now. "All my Turks have been asking about you. I told them all you were going into surgery last night, but I definitely didn't tell them all to feign concern, so you tell me what that means."
"I don't care about them."
"Well, they care about you. We Turks have to look after our own."
"I'm not a Turk, so it doesn't matter. I'm a Shinra. And I guess Shinras don't look after their own."
She had asked him once about potentially joining the Turks when she was older, but Veld had shot that down quickly and used his "serious" voice to tell her never to bring it up again.
"Blood ties are all well and good, but your real family is who you surround yourself with. Who looks out for you when no one else is. And my Turks . . . they're like my family. We all take care of each other. You gonna remember that for me?"
She doesn't know what a real family is anymore. "You're like my family," she says instead, the truth.
Veld pats her knee and smiles. "And you know it. Are you going to be okay here for a little bit? The doc's a good friend of mine. He knows to take care of you, or he's gonna hear from us Turks."
"Yeah. I'll be okay. I'm tired."
"All right. I'll make sure you get an individual visit from everyone, and I'll make sure they don't come empty-handed."
"Okay." It cheers her. He's to the door of her hospital room when she calls him back. "I love you, Veld. Thank you."
"You're welcome, little princess."
She'll never be too old to love that nickname. It makes her feel special. It makes her feel loved.
He turns the dim floor lamp off to give her a darker room to rest in. "I love you, too."
She's fourteen, and she's starting to realize the effect she has on boys, especially older ones, and realizing that her father is hated by many.
She's invited to a beach party by a group of boys she meets at the market, who all smile at her and laugh and flirt with her and tell her how pretty she is.
She wants to go, but Veld refuses unless he's allowed to come with her and Charlie refuses to show up with a Turk at her side.
"Everyone hates me!" she cries, red in the face and screaming at Veld, who maintains a cool expression the entire time. "Everyone hates me because of you! No one wants to hang out with me and my freak bodyguards!"
"You're not going to that party, and I'm not going to say it again, Charlotte."
"I hate you!" she screams, but they both know it isn't true, and she stomps all the way up the stairs and makes as much noise as possible so Veld knows how angry she is.
She sneaks out that night. It's easy enough. She knows the villa well enough to know which floorboards creak and which stairs to skip while going down them. Veld doesn't notice a thing, and Charlie runs all the way down to the beach, where the boys and some of their friends have set up a bonfire.
But she drinks too much and quickly learns the price of drinking too much around a group of strangers.
The boy who invited her tries to steal a wet kiss from her, but his lips connect to her neck instead and don't detach again. He is not half as loving as Rufus, and when he reaches up her shirt to grope her breasts, Charlie struggles to push him off.
His friends laugh as she squirms on the sandy beaches of her favorite city in the world, and she can hear them jeering about taking their own private and personal revenge on Shinra, by getting back at the company by ruining the president's own daughter.
They laugh and they laugh and they laugh until Charlie is sobbing, begging for them to stop.
When Veld shows up, they aren't laughing anymore, and the boy who tried to take her shirt off will never laugh again, not with the way his jaw had shattered underneath the butt of Veld's pistol.
Veld carries her home like his bride, and Charlie sobs into his shoulder. It's only when he sets her down in bed again that she feels comfortable looking into his face.
"Are you okay? Did they hurt you?" That's his first question. He never does reprimand her about drinking that night.
"No," she answers, despite her pride having been torn to shreds.
"Okay. Good." Veld strokes her hair back with his calloused thumb. The event has left her shaking violently, arms wrapped around herself, looking up into the scarred face of her protector. "Listen to me, Charlotte. If you're ever in trouble like that, I want you to call me right away, understood? And I'll come and find you, no questions asked."
"I will, I promise."
"Boys like that . . ." he murmurs. "You don't owe boys like that anything, got it?" She nods. "You are so smart and so funny and so resilient, sweet girl. Boys like that don't care about your brain, or your heart."
She wants to tell him that Rufus cares. Rufus cares about her brain, and he laughs at her jokes, and he doesn't want to break her heart.
He laughs lightly, trying to make her smile. "You smell like a bar, kiddo."
"I feel dizzy."
"That'll be the booze. You sleep that off, okay? Do you feel like you have to throw up?"
"No, I don't think so." She sniffles, pulling the blankets up to her chin. The room is spinning. "I should have listened to you."
"Well, honestly, I didn't really think you'd listen in the first place," he teases.
"I don't really hate you," she admits, and she's sobbing again. She doesn't want Veld to hate her. She doesn't want him to think that she feels anything for him other than complete, absolute, unconditional love. "I didn't mean it. I'm sorry. I don't think you or any of your Turks are freaks."
"It's okay. I don't think any of us are too broken up about it. We've been called worse."
She smiles weakly. "Are you going to tell my father?"
"It's my job to inform your father of what's going on." Veld kisses her temple and gets to his feet, turning her table lamp off. "But as it happens, I'm off the clock tonight and have no obligations to anyone. I'll see you in the morning, little princess."
She's sixteen, and her safety is primarily left in the hands of rookies now that she's older and a little more capable of looking after herself.
If anything, the only reason a Turk stays with her while her father and brother are away is because she'll be incredibly lonely otherwise. That's what she suspects Veld's motives to be, anyway.
"I don't think Tseng likes me," she confesses one day, sitting on the patio of her father's manor in Midgar.
Veld is doing paperwork at the glass table, like he always does on nice days. Tseng trains with an older Turk a few yards away, practicing hand-to-hand combat and moving far quicker than he has any right to be moving.
"Why wouldn't he like you?" Veld asks distractedly.
"I don't know. I didn't do anything to him."
That makes Veld laugh. Scratchy, gruff, genuine laughter. "I know you didn't. He just doesn't know how to handle himself around strong-headed young women. I'm sure he likes you in his own way." He sets down his pen and calls for the training to come to a stop. "Tseng, the girl wants a show. Put on a good one for her, would you?"
Tseng is wide-eyed and eager to please both his superior and the president's daughter. "Yes, sir."
Their training lasts longer this time. Tseng is able to land a few more hits on the other Turk simply by moving faster. Over their grunting and the scraping of their feet against the dirt, Veld leans close.
"I'm going to make that boy my protégé." It's a secret. Her father doesn't share any secrets with her. "Look at him, Charlotte. In ten years, he'll be the finest Turk you've ever seen. I just wonder . . . sometimes . . ."
His eyes are distant. There's something sad about him.
"Well, he'll have you, won't he?" He gives her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Remember what I told you?"
"We have to look after our own."
Veld smiles. He ruffles her hair. "Good girl. Look at him now, not me. He's putting on a good show for you."
She looks in time to see Tseng pin down the other Turk with a grunt. He looks up at Veld for approval.
"Give him a round of encouragement, little princess. He's earned it."
Charlie claps for Tseng. He looks at her and blushes, pleased with himself.
"Yeah," Veld grumbles, chortling and returning to his work. "I think he likes you just fine."
She's eighteen, and Veld has sent Tseng the last few times she needed a bodyguard to stay with her for a few days even though she's old enough to be on her own.
His things have been cleared out of the guest room.
The only thing that's at all the same is the gun that Tseng keeps on the nightstand.
She's twenty, and her heart is heavy with sadness.
Her SOLDIER First Class is missing, her favorite Turk hardly speaks to her anymore, and Tseng lies unresponsive in a hospital bed.
The only sounds in the room are his shallow breathing and the constant beeping of the machine that monitors his heart rate.
"You should go home and get some rest," the doctor tells her.
"No, thank you. I want to be here when he wakes up."
"As you wish, Miss Shinra."
When they're alone again, Charlie smiles weakly down at him. His torso is wrapped in fresh bandages, having had five bullets removed from his chest and abdomen yesterday.
"I wouldn't want to wake alone, if it were me," she whispers to him.
She slips her hand loosely into his own limp thing, long-fingered and pale and clammy. The only time she's held his hand before is when he offered her a hand up into or out of a helicopter or a car.
"We have to look after each other, even if you are just a stupid Turk." She squeezes his hand. "We're family, aren't we? You can't leave me now."
When he wakes, she is there, curled up in a chair beside his bed.
"Charlotte," he croaks, eyes fluttering open to immediately snap back shut at the fluorescent lighting overhead.
"Don't over exert yourself," she says, holding her hands out in front of her. He's already trying to sit up. "You've been in here for four days. You're still recovering."
"Have you been here all this time?"
"Well . . . yeah. I thought you wouldn't want to wake up alone."
Tseng scoffs. He pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut tight while he does it.
"And I was worried."
"About me?"
"Who else?"
He looks at her for a long time. It's like he can't believe she was worried at all about him.
"I held your hand while you were unconscious," she admits. "Sorry. It was only for a little, anyway. Your hand was all sweaty."
Another soft laugh. He wipes his palm on the blanket. When he opens his eyes again, his pupils are dilated wide, eyes slightly glazed over. He's still being fed medicine through the IV in the back of his right hand.
"I don't remember the last time someone held my hand."
It makes her think of how she felt waking up after her own surgery to find only Veld there, and how such a small gesture had made her feel infinitely better.
Charlie smiles. She loves him, as she did Veld. Unconditionally.
"Listen . . ." he sighs. "About Angeal . . ."
She shakes her head, tears welling up in her eyes despite the tired smile on her face. "It's okay."
She slides her hand back into his own until he falls back asleep.
She is twenty-three, and sometimes she needs to get away from the city.
Sometimes she needs time to put herself together again after Reeve manages to once again pierce through the thick walls she's built around herself.
Sometimes, she and Tseng share dumbapples on a private part of the beach in Costa del Sol where there's no one around to bother them. It's a place untouched by tourists, that's accessible only by a fifteen minute excursion through thick foliage.
They don't have to speak to each other, which is just fine with her. She knows they're both thinking of old friends.
It reminds her of days spent eating ice cream with Veld.
She is twenty-six, and Tseng is the leader of the Turks now, and she's trying to forget Veld, the man who claimed to love her so much, the man who left her.
It's two o'clock in the morning when she hears the opening and closing of her apartment door.
She sits up straight, heart fluttering, and listens for a minute. No one is ransacking her things, which strikes her as odd. The only sound is the pouring rain tapping against the roof and windows.
Reeve is away on a business trip to Junon. It can't be him.
She takes the gun from her nightstand, clothes herself, and steps out of her bedroom.
There's someone sitting on her sofa. She approaches from behind, putting the gun on a table only when she's sure she recognizes them.
"Tseng?" she whispers, creeping around to the front of him. "What are you doing here?"
He doesn't move. When she turns a lamp on, it's to find him soaking wet and dripping all over her furniture, still wearing his Turk uniform, his hands covering his face and his dark hair down, framing his covered face.
"Tseng," she says again, kneeling in front of him, reaching out to take hold of his wrists, lowering them.
His hands are trembling, his skin is cool and slick to the touch. He looks so helpless, his face bloodless.
"What's wrong?" she asks. She's afraid, but not of him.
She doesn't even care about how he managed to get in so easily. He must have a spare key.
Tseng doesn't answer. He looks down at her miserably.
"What happened?" she asks again, releasing his hands, but he still doesn't answer. "Hold on, okay?"
She fetches some dry clothes, some of Reeve's old things. They'll probably be too big for Tseng, but he accepts them anyway.
"I'm sorry for coming so late," he rasps.
"No, don't be, it's okay. Don't worry. Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Okay." Charlie sighs. "How did you get here?"
"I walked."
If he's telling the truth, it means he's walked across nearly the entire sector. "I'm going to call for a car to pick you up," she says, "and I'll take you home, all right?"
Tseng's hand darts out to grab her wrist tight. His eyes widen slightly. "No."
"You're scaring me. What's going on?"
"Please," he chokes out, "can I stay here tonight?"
"Why? Is someone at your apartment? You know I don't mind throwing out women. I do it for Reno all the time. He calls it 'taking out the trash'."
Her joke falls flat. There's something terribly wrong. "Charlotte," he tells her seriously, still holding onto her wrist.
"What?"
"I don't think I'm cut out for this job."
"What are you talking about? You're the best man for the job," she protests, gently prying Tseng's fingers off her wrist. His hands are still shaking. "Veld believed in you, or else he wouldn't have groomed you for the position."
"Veld," he manages to say again, clutching at her hand. He covers his face with his free hand again, letting his hair fall forward as he slumps against the sofa.
"Did something happen?"
"Yes," he replies.
"Are you okay?" Charlie frowns, looking him over. He looks ridiculous in Reeve's plaid pajama bottoms and Costa del Sol t-shirt. "You never wear your hair down."
Tseng runs a hand through it, as if just now noticing.
"It looks nice."
She isn't sure if she's drunk or not. He doesn't smell like it.
"All right, you can stay here tonight, but just for tonight." He gives her a small smile, but his heart is hardly in it. "And maybe we won't tell Reeve, either."
The next morning, Charlie sets up in the Turks' office, working in silence on a model airplane as Tseng does paperwork, all professionalism again. Last night may not have happened. She might have dreamed that Tseng was on her sofa, soaking wet and close to tears.
Reno tries his hardest to distract her, pulling her around Midgar to see sights she's seen a hundred times already, in the hopes that she won't return to the Shinra Building, to Tseng.
Reno confronts her about how much time she's been spending with Tseng lately, and that makes her angry, so angry that she ends up screaming in his face about minding his own business, urging him to leave her alone.
She will find out much later that Reno only meant well, keeping her away from Tseng.
She will find out much later that Reno watched Tseng kill Veld.
Charlie doesn't know why these memories plague her restless sleep that night, wrapped up in Rufus's arms as he presses his cheek to her forehead, sleeping soundly.
At least she's going home tomorrow. She'll be able to see Reeve. Maybe if she's lucky, he'll leave work early so they can go home together and she can apologize for what happened and explain that she never meant to hurt him.
If she's lucky. She's never had much luck getting Reeve away from his office.
She has to admit that Rufus broke a lot easier than she expected him to, but it might have been because of the tears. The tears were very real, at least. A few open-mouthed kisses and sweet words is a fair enough price to pay for being able to return home unharmed.
But once he started to cry, Charlie couldn't help but feel slightly guilty. Rufus is clearly under an enormous burden—the presidency is weighing heavily on his heart, he's surrounded by people who would see him fail, and the only person he's comfortable being so vulnerable with is currently plotting another escape from Midgar and Shinra Incorporated.
Surely he's lonely. She knows how that feels.
Charlie touches her brother's face. She does love him, more than she's ever loved anyone. He had saved her from a lot of beatings as children, and he was her best friend when she had no one.
But how could Rufus really believe she would want to stay? How could she stay in Midgar, knowing what she knows now about Tseng? Knowing what she knows now about Shinra?
It's her fault. It's all her fault.
She had let herself be charmed and flattered by these murderers and liars. They were funny and knew how to have a good time. They took care of her and helped her in a pinch when she needed it. They cared for Cat when she and Reeve had to go away. They did everything for her.
But the Turks aren't her friends, and they never have been. She was stupid to think otherwise. She doesn't care about them—she hates them, especially Tseng, who had killed Veld and forced her to come back to Midgar when she didn't want to and then kept her in a cell for . . . well, she doesn't know how long, but it's too long, whatever it is.
Hasn't Reeve been telling her for years that she shouldn't trust the Turks? He's never once forgotten what they are or what they're capable of, always reminding Charlie of their past misdeeds and attitudes.
But where is she supposed to go? She doesn't have a phone to contact Cloud, and Reeve likely isn't going to help her out of the city. What would she even do with Cloud and his group?
Maybe they could take her to Cosmo Canyon again, and if not, at least they'll have information about her mother. And they would keep her safe until she figures out a new plan, right? At least with them, she won't have to be constantly looking over her shoulder, and isn't chasing Sephiroth what she's going to be doing with Rufus?
Does she even want to chase after Sephiroth?
When Rufus wakes, the first thing he does is check the cameras. They're still turned off, and he steals a kiss from her upon noticing. It's almost habitual, like they've been waking beside each other for years now. It reminds her of the way she covers Reeve in kisses when she wakes up, just because she can.
Charlie can't believe how easy it is to fall back into something that feels so routine to her, despite knowing that it's wrong. She's old enough to understand what's going on shouldn't be going on, and so is Rufus, but the gesture is more comforting than he can possibly know.
And besides, doesn't she owe him this? Soon, if things go according to the non-existent plan she has, she'll be gone and removed from Rufus and Tseng and Shinra and Midgar. She needs to start blazing her own trail, and if there's anyone who can help her do that, it's the people who hate Shinra most in the world.
Right? Is that what she wants?
Rufus's lips latch onto her jaw, suckling and nipping lightly at her skin. It leaves her frustrated, tightly wound, and desperate to escape the confines of her cell.
If I do what he wants, he'll let me go.
But that's a price she isn't willing to pay. She has someone else she wants to see, someone that she would happily accept kisses and touches from without hesitation.
"I want to see Reeve," she whispers, and Rufus growls against the warm skin of her chest. "Let me see him."
"Why would I do that?" he murmurs, lifting his head to scowl at her. "So the two of you can plan your little coup?"
"You don't believe that."
"Fine. Maybe I just don't like the idea of him putting hands all over you." Rufus's eyes flash, and she's certain that he's holding back the urge to hurt her again. "Get dressed. We're showing your face in public today so everyone knows that you're home, safe and sound and happy and willing."
"I want to see Reeve before we leave. I'm stopping by his office."
Rufus grits his teeth for a moment before his lips twist into a sneer. "No," he says again. "That won't be necessary." His eyes flick down to her left hand as he laces their fingers together, bringing her hand closer to his face. "People will notice you're not wearing an engagement ring."
"Going to buy me another one?"
Rufus scoffs. "Get dressed. Don't make me say it again, or I'll get angry."
It takes all day, and it leaves her completely emotionally drained.
She has to put on a smile for everyone they come into contact with, despite the fact that all she wants to do is cry. It's painful to smile, but she does it anyway, and she laughs at all of Rufus's sarcastic little quips and holds onto his arm when he offers and accepts his harmless compliments without question.
She forces herself to think about Reeve, to think about how nice it will be to see him again, to think about how nice it will feel to be held by him again.
She knows that Reeve will forgive her. She knows him. He's always waited for her, was always there to comfort her. And she's certain that this time will not be any different.
Rufus doesn't leave her side once all day, and only takes her home in the late afternoon when he decides he has work he needs to do.
"I've stationed SOLDIERs outside your apartment," he tells her. "They'll bring you to the hangar tomorrow morning so we can leave for Nibelheim."
Charlie doesn't answer, looking out the window as they pull up to her apartment building.
Her heart is racing. She hopes Reeve is home.
Rufus doesn't walk her up, instead choosing to remain in the car as Charlie enters the building and rides the elevator all the way to the top floor.
Two Third Class SOLDIERs are standing guard outside the door, and they all ignore each other as Charlie let's herself inside with the key Rufus had given her in the car.
She locks the door behind her immediately, pressing her back to it and sighing. It's good to be home.
"Reeve?" she calls out, pocketing the key.
That's when she notices the shoes missing in the narrow little foyer, and the coats missing from the coat rack.
"Reeve!" she shouts again, her voice breaking.
She's met with silence.
She tries one more time, a little quieter, suddenly very frightened. "Reeve?"
When he doesn't answer that time, Charlie turns the lights on. All of the curtains have been drawn, allowing little light into the apartment. When she enters the living room, she's met with something far more terrible than any stretch of silence she's ever experienced.
The apartment has been cleaned out. Pictures and personal effects are missing from shelves and tables, leaving behind only the furniture, the television, the artwork on the walls, and some of the larger decor.
Reeve's office is the same. The entire room has been cleared, his desk completely empty. The pictures on the walls have all been taken down, the books lining his shelves are gone, his computer is missing, and the fake plants on the windowsill are conspicuously absent.
Charlie's heart leaps into her throat, and she has to force herself to continue on towards their bedroom. She almost shuts down completely to find his clothes gone. Their dresser is half-empty and their closet has far more space than she remembers. His nightstand is bare, as well as the drawer.
Her backpack, however, sits in the middle of her bed. Nothing has been taken out of it—her two photographs are still there, and her compass and map haven't been touched, but the gun is gone. She never really expected to be given her gun back.
There's little evidence that Reeve had ever lived here at all. All of the drawings of her that had been stashed throughout the apartment in the most random places are now gone with everything else, more than half of the pictures of the both of them have been taken, and her kitchen is nearly completely devoid of food or drink.
He's even taken Cat.
She finds herself back in his empty office without remembering how she got there. Charlie runs her hands through her hair, grabbing fistfuls of it as tears well up in her eyes, and it's so hard to catch her breath, why is it so hard to breathe—
She lowers herself to her knees, unable to stand for another second. Bracing herself against the hardwood floor, Charlie takes a moment to gather her bearings. She pushes herself up against his desk, bringing her knees to her chest, feeling completely hollow, feeling completely empty.
Charlie cries into her hands, wondering if the SOLDIERs outside her door can hear her sobbing.
Isn't that what she wanted? If he's gone, it at least means he's safe, doesn't it? If Reeve has gone for good, then Rufus will have no reason to hate him, to threaten him, to abuse him, right?
There's nothing here for me anymore, she thinks. There's nothing anywhere for me.
The silence is deafening. It's suffocating and oppressive. The office seems so empty, so large, so unfamiliar.
I have nothing, I have no one.
I am nothing. I am no one.